A Restless Wind Read Free Page B

is thankfully becoming a thing of the past.
         “The slaves have been set free, Uncle.  What rational person would expect that women should remain enslaved to men?”  she asked as she stood up.  “When and if I do marry, I should like to gain a partner in life.  Not a master.”  She took off her apron and laid it over the back of her chair.
         “H’m,”  Zebadiah muttered again as he lifted his coffee cup to his mouth.
         “Things are changing, Uncle.  Even in the West.  Perhaps moreso in the West.  Women have already won the right to vote in several of the territories.”
         “Well, things have changed here, too, Hetty.  It isn’t safe for a young woman to be riding about alone.  Why, when I found out that you went riding alone in the timber yesterday, it scared ten years off my life.”
         Hetty flashed a smile at him.  “Are you going to tell me those stories about bloodthirsty wolves as you used to tell me to keep me from riding there?”
         “If they would do any good, I would tell them,”  he answered.  The truth was, though, that his stories about wolves hadn’t stopped her then.  And he doubted they would stop her now.
         “Well,”  he said with a shake of his head.  “I don’t know why I should be surprised, Hetty.  You never did listen to a da-  to a thing I told you.”
         Hetty smiled and agreed.  “No.  Not if I could help it.  More coffee?”
         He slid his coffee cup forward.  “Don’t be smiling at me like that, Hetty.  You,”  And he shook a reproving finger at her for emphasis.  “Know very well how to get your way with me.  Don’t think I don’t know it.  But in this instance, Hetty, I am putting my foot down.  There are plenty of wolves of the two-legged kind prowling around the hills right now.  It isn’t safe to be riding alone.  Why, Sara Cade’s disappearance ought to prove that to you.  Not to mention everything else that has been going on around here.”
         He was on safer ground now.  Surely she could see that in this particular instance his request was for her own good.  She ought to be reasonable about that.
         “I’m sorry if I worried you,”  she said, her manner quickly changing.  “But after being shut up in the city all winter, a good long ride was something I couldn’t resist.  And it’s the middle of Spring roundup,   You have your hands full running the ranch and the ranch hands are too busy to spend their time escorting me around.”
         As if she’d consent to an escort , he thought.
         “And-  ”   She gave him another one of her bright smiles.  “I have come back safe and sound, so you don’t have to give it another thought.”
         Another thought?  He’d sat on thorns for hours waiting for her to return yesterday.  He wasn’t reassured, wasn’t sure she wouldn’t go riding alone again and he voiced his concern.
        She arched a delicate brow in his direction.  “I don’t imagine you give the same orders to the men.”
         “No.  That’s because they are men, Hetty.”
         “You know that I can ride as well as most of the hands,”  she reminded him.  “And I can shoot, too.”
         She was right.  She could shoot, probably better than half the ranch hands.  And she rode as if she had been born to the saddle.  He had taught her himself.  Living here, it was practically a necessity for her to learn those things. 
         “Hellfire, girl-  “
         She reminded him again not to swear.
         “Hetty, you are twenty-one ye ars old now.  Almost a woman-  ”
         “Twenty-two,”  she corrected him.  “I am a woman, Uncle.  And a woman is just as capable of defending herself as a man.  Don’t you remember all those stories you told me about women settlers defending their families?  And what about the bravery of women during the war?  Surely those